Lucky SoHo renter pays $55 a month for a one-bedroom pad

How much do you think a one-bedroom apartment in SoHo goes for? You'd probably guess around $2,500 a month — not the $55.01 one tenant is paying.

The insanely low figure is what Thomas Lombardi pays per month to live in his rent-controlled one-bedroom home at 5 Spring St., according to the New York Post. Lombardi, who is in his 70s, grew up in the unit after his family moved to NYC from Italy in the 1940s, and now he lives there with his wife, the paper said.

But Lombardi isn't the only one in his building paying a pittance for a pad in one of Manhattan's most sought-after neighborhoods. Tom Combs, 87, pays $71.23 for the 500-sqaure-foot one-bedroom apartment where he has lived since 1967, the Post reported.

In order for an apartment to qualify for rent control, the tenant or a family member must have been living there since before July 1, 1971.

Landlords of rent-controlled apartments can raise the monthly rent by 7.5% a year — if they file the paperwork with the city. But the landlord who bought Lombardi and Combs’ building for $3.9 million last year never filed such paperwork, the Post said. Because of that, Lombardi and Combs' rents are frozen at the shockingly low rates.

The average price of a rent-controlled unit in the city is $800 a month. Appraisers told the Post that Lombardi and Combs’ apartments would each normally go for $2,500.